Ad exposure went with both more testing and more men skipping it
Across 75 US media markets and 17 million insured men, each extra household exposure to a televised testosterone advert went with more testing and more men starting with no recent test.
What the study found
More television advertising, more men starting without a test
Adverts moved two things that should not move together. Across 75 media markets and 17 million insured US men, each extra household exposure to a televised testosterone advert went with more testing, more men starting treatment, and more starting with no recent test on record.
The caveat · Whole markets, not individual men
This compares whole markets rather than individual men, so it cannot show that any particular man was moved by an advert. Per exposure the effect is tiny, on the order of 0.05 extra initiations per 10,000 men per monthly exposure, even though the ratios are statistically significant. Advertising clustered in the southeastern states, which may differ in ways nobody measured. The data run to 2013, before direct-to-consumer telemedicine.
What we don't know
This compares whole markets rather than individual men, so it cannot show that any particular man was moved by an advert. Per exposure the effect is tiny, on the order of 0.05 extra initiations per 10,000 men per monthly exposure, even though the ratios are statistically significant. Advertising clustered in the southeastern states, which may differ in ways nobody measured. The data run to 2013, before direct-to-consumer telemedicine.